Newbery Nutcases

Look, I know this may be a little outdated, but, hey I have a life (well, sort of...) so don't kill me, just read on.

So, I read a post from Women Behaving Badly (shameless plug) about a book...

...A book that won the Newbery Medal for children's literature
...A book that Blogcritics.org called "an amazing story."
...A book that had the gaul to use the word (please make sure you're seated)...

...scrotum.

Yep, that's right, we're now banning books for using the word "scrotum." In case your confused, I don't mean it uses a slang for scrotum - it doesn't use the term "nutsack" or "thigh tonsils," just the good old Merriam-Webster approved term "scrotum."

Now, I know -- the whole world is trying to protect our youth, innocence of childhood, yada yada yada, but let me put this into perspective:

This book won the Newbery Medal, which is given to children's literature - so we're not talking about a picture book. This is not Norton Nears a Nutsack or Scrotes the Magic Dragon. This is a book to be read by children of an older age: 14, 13, maybe 12.

So, what these paranoid book banners are attempting to do is prevent 12 and 13 year olds from seeing the medical term for something that half of them already have.

These are the same thirteen year olds who went to second grade in the fall of 2001, settled down to hear a story about a goat, and came home that day to learn a whole bunch of new vocabulary words: hi-jacking, terrorist, and jihad ...just to name a few.

They got to learn new geography, too. Places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and, for more than a few of them, Dover, Delaware.

I don't mean to bring the room down - and I'm not advocating taking the plastic wrap off the "top shelf" magazines, but seriously, I think any 13 year old that has the gumption to actually read some literature ought to have the chance.

As Lisa put it, anyone who's afraid it might lead to an uncomfortable vocab lesson should,
you know,
grow a pair.

Tags:
rant funny newbery censorship humor lazycomic